Montgomery Independent School District v. Martin

• Citation: 464 S.W.2d 638
• Decision Date: 10 March 1971
• Docket Number: No. B--2571,B--2571
• Parties: MONTGOMERY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Relator, v. Crawford MARTIN, Attorney General of Texas, Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of Texas

Page 638

464 S.W.2d 638

MONTGOMERY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Relator, v. Crawford MARTIN, Attorney General of Texas, Respondent.

No. B--2571.

Supreme Court of Texas.

March 10, 1971.

Rehearing Denied April 7, 1971.

Vinson, Elkins, Searls & Smith, Donald L. Howell, Houston, for relator.

Crawford Martin, Atty. Gen., Joseph H. Sharpley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, for respondent.

POPE, Justice.

Montgomery Independent School District seeks a writ of mandamus directing the Attorney General of Texas to approve an issue of $450,000 of the District's Unlimited Tax Schoolhouse Bonds, Series 1970. The Attorney General says that the reason for refusing to approve the issue is that the bond election did not result in the necessary majority vote. The School District contends that portions of Article VI and Article VII of the Texas Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St., as well as Section 20.04 of the Texas Education Code violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are unconstitutional. The basis for this contention is that those provisions of the law limit the voting rights to electors who are property owners who have rendered their property for taxes.

The bond election occurred on October 17, 1970, and it concerned bonds which would be paid from the levy of ad valorem taxes. Because of some uncertainty in the law concerning voter qualifications, two separate but simultaneous elections were conducted. At one election the only persons permitted to vote were the qualified electors of the District who owned taxable property in the District and who had duly rendered their property for taxation. Those voters rejected the bond issue. At the other election all other qualified resident voters of the District were permitted to vote, and those voters approved the bond issue. The majority of the voters in both elections, when counted together, also approved the bond issue. The School Board adopted an order declaring that the election resulted favorably to the issuance of the bonds, and on December 18, 1970, authorized the issuance of the bonds and levied an ad valorem tax.

The Attorney General says that the provisions of Article VI, Section 3a, and Article VII, Section 3, of the Texas Constitution, as well as Section 20.04 of the Texas Education Code, compel the disapproval of the issuance. The School District does not dispute this, but it urges that we should strike down those provisions as unconstitutionally selective in authorizing voting rights. The relevant portions of the Constitution and the Texas Education Code are:

Section 3a, Art. VI, Texas Constitution: When an election is held by any county, or any number of counties, or any political sub-division of the State, or any political sub-division of a county, or any defined district now or hereafter to be described and defined within the State and which may or may not include towns, villages or municipal corporations, or any city, town or village, for the purpose of issuing bonds or otherwise lending credit, or expending money or assuming any debt, Only qualified electors who own taxable property in the State, county, political sub-division, district, city, town or village where such election is held, and who have duly rendered the same for taxation, shall be qualified to vote and all electors shall vote in the election precinct of their residence.

Section 3, Art. VII, Texas Constitution, authorizes the levy and collection of ad valorem taxes, within limits, with this proviso: 'provided that a majority of the qualified property tax-paying voters of the district voting at an election to be held for that purpose shall vote such tax * * *.'

Section 20.04(a), Texas Education Code: No such bonds shall be issued and none of the aforesaid taxes shall be levied unless authorized by a Majority of the resident, qualified electors of the district, who own taxable property therein and who have duly rendered the same for taxation, voting at an election held for such purpose, at the expense of the district, in accordance with the Texas Election Code, except as hereinafter provided. (Emphasis added)

Several recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court have invalidated state laws which selectively grant the right to vote and have held those laws violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court struck down a New York statute which granted the right to vote in a school district election only to those who owned or leased taxable real property in the district or were parents or custodians of children enrolled in the public schools. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 89 S.Ct. 1886, 23 L.Ed.2d 583 (1969). The same day the court decided Kramer, it also handed down Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 89 S.Ct. 1897, 23 L.Ed.2d 647 (1969). The court held a Louisiana statute unconstitutional because it permitted only property owners to vote on the question of approving bonds that were to be financed exclusively from the revenues of a municipal public utility. In Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204, 90 S.Ct. 1990, 26 L.Ed.2d 523 (1970), an Arizona constitutional limitation of the franchise in bond authorization elections to persons who are qualified electors and also real property taxpayers was held to be a violation of the equal protection clause.

These precedents constitute the framework for the School District's contention that the Texas constitutional and statutory limitations upon voting rights in a school bond election are also violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. There are significant differences between the three cases cited above and this case. In Cipriano, the court held that ownership of property was a restriction which was irrelevant to an election for the approval of bonds that would be financed by revenues of a public utility and not by taxation of property. The case before us does not concern revenue bonds. In Kramer and Kolodziejski, only persons who were real property taxpayers were permitted to vote. The Texas law does not restrict voting rights to owners of real property.

One other case needs discussion. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana struck down Louisiana statutes which restricted eligibility to vote in bond elections to property taxpayers and also weighed each elector's vote by the monetary value of his assessed property. Stewart v. Parish School Bd. of Paris of St. Charles, 310 F.Supp. 1172 (E.D.La.1970), aff'd mem., 400 U.S. 884, 27 L.Ed.2d 129, 91 S.Ct. 136. The court said that the affluence of the voter was not such a compelling state interest as to justify the denial of the vote to some and the dilution of the votes of the majority. We do not have that problem in this case. The weight and force of the vote of the Texas elector who owns a bicycle is no different from that of the elector who owns a herd of cattle. It is immaterial to the right to...